


Cochlear

by anticommute



Category: Super Junior-M
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticommute/pseuds/anticommute
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyuhyun has trouble letting go, ZhouMi has trouble remembering, and Henry may or may not exist. Virtual Reality!AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cochlear

The panel slid away effortlessly at his touch, revealing a door hidden in the gridworked wall. Kyuhyun ducked his head as he passed through the gap to the other side, rolling his shoulders to ease stiff muscles the moment he straightened. His eyes took in the lush surroundings as the panel slid back in place with a flick of his fingers, the wall melting away as if it had never existed.

"Neat trick."

A rustling of leaves, and a young man stepped into view from behind a bush, a grin on his face.

"Knew I'd find you here," Kyuhyun replied. The edges of a smile he couldn't quite suppress crept onto his face. "And there's more where that came from."

"Oh?" A smirk played about the corner of the other's mouth, a clear challenge written in the corners of his eyes.

Kyuhyun rolled his eyes - and in the next moment, the forest had warped around them until salty spray splashed across both their faces and the sound of water crashing against sheer cliff walls roared in their ears. " _Oh_ , Zhou Mi," and it was Kyuhyun's turn to smirk, his voice raised to be heard above the din.

Zhou Mi laughed, raising his hands in mock defeat. "Okay, okay, now take us somewhere quieter!"

With a cocky grin on his face and a mock salute, Kyuhyun obliged.

"Quiet enough?" he asked, strolling along the cobblestone path. Stately, old-looking buildings stood in the distance, partly obscured by the trees that lined the pathway. Wood-slated benches were interspersed under the trees' shade, and it was on one of these that Zhou Mi was seated, legs stretched out in front of him, hands folded across his lap, leaning back easily as if he hadn't just been standing at the edge of a continent. He grinned; the sort of grin that indicated not-very-well hidden laughter. "Quiet enough, Kuixian," he said, "although I didn't know this sort of place was your taste."

A discomfited look fluttered across Kyuhyun's features for a moment before it was replaced with a mock frown. "Must be your stupid ideas rubbing off on me," he grumbled, but there was no real heat nor force behind the words. "Looks like I need to go home and blow up a few more zombies."

"Poor zombies," Zhou Mi remarks with a laugh as Kyuhyun takes a seat on the bench opposite of him. "So, why were you looking for me?"

"Felt like it," Kyuhyun grunted, turning to inspect his fingers with the utmost care.

In the distance, the shrill chirp of a small bird was echoed by an even more distant trill. A breeze which noisily shuffled the leaves on a tree tugged briefly at the hem of Zhou Mi's shirt before relinquishing it, its strength spent. Kyuhyun said nothing, and Zhou Mi spoke silence with him.

It was a muted clanging of bells and the sudden chatter of voices that startled the great bird of silence from its roost. Zhou Mi started, looked up with eyes open huge focused on Kyuhyun's face with too many questions to be answered in a century and in half a second - no, half that time and halfed again - Kyuhyun was on his feet, reaching across the narrow yet ever widening path towards those eyes still focused on his and -

\- he jerked backward, before letting his body sag down into the chair, burying his face in both hands.

He'd failed again. _Again_.

He remained slumped like that for a few minutes, unmoving, before kicking back the chair and stalking from the room. The door slammed shut behind him, and then another - but already his pace had softened and there was far more weariness than frustration written in the slackening lines of tension.

"Asleep, Zhou Mi?" he called through a closed door. More for his own benefit than anything - but that was a thought he did not dwell on for long.

Kyuhyun stepped inside the sparsely furnished room - and upon seeing that Zhou Mi was indeed stretched out on the bed, VISOR still firmly in place - allowed himself a moment as he sank down against the wall, pulling his legs up to his chest like a child hiding from the world.

The last few moments before the forced disconnect replayed themselves in his mind - he'd look at the log later, but being honest with himself, he wasn't expecting to find anything new in the code.

_Again_.

When Kyuhyun finally opened his eyes - which he'd forgotten he'd closed; relaxed his clenched jaw, balled fists - he saw Zhou Mi staring at him with wide open eyes and a questioning smile on his lips, VISOR slipped off and discarded to the side.

"Something wrong, Kuixian-ah?" he asked.

Kyuhyun shook his head, forced a grin to his face. "No, nothing. Go back to sleep."

"'Nothing' does not make you look like a cat in labour, Kuixian," Zhou Mi replied, and Kyuhyun wanted to scream at him to _stop calling me that, that's not my name!_ but being Kyuhyun and not seven years old, he merely forced his grin (grimace?) wider and wished that he'd programmed a [insert witty reply] script into his brain for times like now when it refused to function properly.

"Your nose looks like a cat in labour," was the best he could come up with and _yes_ he was aware that made no sense and no you do not have to point that out to me Zhou Mi and "Oh, just go back to sleep."

_Of course something's wrong,_ he wanted to scream, as he walked out the door shutting it quietly behind him. But _that_ would be entirely silly and immature and not productive in any way and something that Zhou Mi might do when he was drunk on girly drinks and he, Kyuhyun, was not Zhou Mi. For one, Zhou Mi had owned more jewlery than a girl owned clothes - no, Zhou mi _owned_ , Kyuhyun corrected himself.

But it was with Zhou Mi slipping into the past tense that Kyuhyun strolled into the cafe. "The usual," he ordered with a dismissive gesture, all but falling into a chair. When the waiter didn't immediately leave to fill his order, Kyuhyun looked up to see an unfamiliar face staring at him.

"You're new," he said more than asked, uneasiness settling into the place behind his sternum.

"Impressive," the not-waiter-waiter said, taking the chair opposite of Kyuhyun. "A VN within the VR isn't something most people can do."

Kyuhyun watched the newcomer warily, his fingers tapping on the table in front of him on their own accord. "You're pretty impressive yourself, getting into my network," he commented glibly with far more confidence than he felt right now.

The boy turned large brown eyes on him and Kyuhyun was suddenly reminded of Zhou Mi. "Don't worry, I'm not government -" and was the kid _laughing_ at him?

"Good to know," he said - and who could blame him if his tone was a little dry? "I don't suppose you're going to get my coffee, are you?"

This time, the boy did chuckle. He swiped his fingers across a forearm, calling up an intsys. Kyuhyun watched as he keyed in commands - a moment later a cup of coffee sat steaming on the table, and the kid's waiter outfit had been replaced by a set of casual clothes.

"But this is _my_ network," Kyuhyun grumbled, aware that he was whining. The coffee was good though, nothing out of the ordinary, maybe even an improvement, if anything.

"Milk and extra sugar," the kid cut in to his thoughts, and Kyuhyun had to suppress the urge to kick him under the table.

"How _did_ you get in here?" Kyuhyun had to ask, somewhere between a third and half the cup later. "And do I know you?"

The boy just grinned and leaned back in the chair. All he needed was a cape and to lace his fingers together to make the perfect evil mastermind, Kyuhyun thought wryly. "It wasn't easy," he admitted, calling up his intsys again. "Data manipulation is impossible without this. Nice security system. It took me a while to figure out too."

"Thanks," Kyuhyun said reluctantly. "So if you're not government, then who are you and what are you doing in _my_ network?" Setting up the security for his nested networks had taken Kyuhyun the better part of a month - seeing someone break it down and do as he pleased so simply grated at his nerves.

"To warn you." Any hint of mirth had disappeared from the kid's face, sending a chill down Kyuhyun's spine.

"Warn me?" he echoed; this was turning into some cliched B-rated film.

"'You can't hold on forever, Kuixian ah'," the boy continued as if Kyuhyun hadn't interrupted - but it was in another voice that Kyuhyun heard those words. His fingers tightened around the cup's handle, threatening to crush the ceramic into fine powder.

Kyuhyun stared. "You... How... Who _are_ you?" _You know Zhou Mi?_ echoed in his thoughts, barely audible over his own pounding heart.

A ripple in the data, and Kyuhyun was alone in the cafe, his usual NPCs peopling the space. A slip of paper coming to rest on the table was the only proof that the past five minutes hadn't been just his imagination. Kyuhyun glanced at the string of ones and zeroes before tucking it into his pocket.

"Henry, huh?" he mused to himself.

His coffee had grown cold. He didn't bother stepping out of the cafe before terminating his own link.

 

The edge of the table cut uncomfortably into his arm, the VISOR feed biting into his cheek. Zhou Mi was waiting for him when he finally pushed himself upright, letting his mind make the full transfer back into consciousness. Zhou Mi, standing there with the same disapproving look on his face that Kyuhyun remembered from another time, another place. Huh, how long ago had it been now? One, three, five years? Ten years? No, that couldn't be it - Zhou Mi was only twenty five, after all.

It was Zhou Mi's equally disapproving voice that pulled him completely out of post-net haziness. "You brought me into the virtual network without my permission again, Kuixian! I told you I don't like it when you do that."

_I don't like it when you do that_ echoes in Kyuhyun's mind as he stands, rolling back stiff shoulder muscles. "Sorry," he grunts, before adding: "VN. No one calls it 'virtual network' except for you."

"You use too many strange words," Zhou Mi says with a face. "The last time you signed me in you kept talking about int this and AI that- "

A groan, as Kyuhyun resisted the urge to perform a rendition of 'face, meet table'. "Intsys - interface system. And even you, Zhou Mi the occasional idiot, should know what AI means."

"Artificial intelligence, but that's not the point. The point- "

"Shower." Kyuhyun cut in, not waiting for Zhou Mi to finish. He tossed the VISOR onto the table, and left a confused Zhou Mi silent behind him as he shut the bathroom door behind him.

Zhou Mi was still standing by the desk when Kyuhyun emerged from the shower several minutes later, roughly towelling his hair dry. The way Zhou Mi's brows drew together, and the slight but still discernible downturn of his mouth was almost enough to make Kyuhyun feel bad about snapping at him earlier. After all, it wasn't exactly Zhou Mi's fault. No, logically, it wasn't Zhou Mi's fault at all - except for that one part of Kyuhyun's mind that insisted that yes, it _was_ Zhou Mi's fault, _everything_ was Zhou Mi's fault.

"Look - " he began, and groaned because he wasn't _trying_ to sound mean. In the end, he settled for an awkward pat on the shoulder - Zhou mi started, turned, and stared - and a quiet "sorry, Zhou Mi," before letting himself drop onto the bed like a limp doll.

 

 

"Should I make a habit of expecting you?" Kyuhyun raised an eyebrow when he saw the now not-as-unfamiliar face sitting at his usual table.

The kid grinned. "Who knows?" he replied enigmatically, pulling his intsys out again with a brief swipe of his fingers. Moments later, two cups of coffee sat steaming on the table. Kyuhyun rolled his eyes and pulled up a chair.

"Henry, right?" Although it was more of a statement than a question. "Binary's a bit old-fashioned. You could've at least used hexadecimal."

He laughed, typing a string of commands into his intsys. "There's more there than just my name," he remarked, snatching a slip of fluttering paper from the air before handing it to Kyuhyun. "This might come in handy."

Kyuhyun pocketed it with a glance - he could take a thorough look later. "And? Is there a reason you're here today, or do you just enjoy my company that much?"

Henry faked a hurt look, and Kyuhyun's mind suddenly jumped back to Zhou Mi again. _Focus_ he told himself. _This isn't just about Zhou Mi - okay, so maybe it is, but_ -

"That's not the point?"

"Then what is - oh for god's sake are you _always_ this infuriating?" Kyuhyun ground out between his teeth as he wondered if he'd really said that aloud or if Henry was secretly a mind reader.

"Not really." Henry smiled cheekily, taking a sip of coffee. "And can't it be both? You're smart, a genius programmer, kind of awkward, and you happen to be - "

"No stop, stop. Stop right there." Kyuhyun stuck his hand out to emphasize his words. He had a good idea of what Henry had about to say, and he didn't need to hear it said aloud. Not by him, at least. Henry, this stranger who he'd barely met, was probably the last person Kyuhyun wanted to hear it from - after Zhou Mi, that was. Zhou Mi. Henry. Right... 

"So tell me, do you - "

"Do I know Zhou Mi?" Henry finished for him - and Kyuhyun didn't even have the audacity to be surprised anymore. The kid stared at him unblinking, and Kyuhyun found himself staring back at wide open eyes - which was why he almost missed it when the kid's data stream flickered, his avatar wavering with it.

That was all the opening Kyuhyun needed. He slid out his own intsys - going back to the basics turned out to be more efficient when doing data captures like these - and franctically keyed in code after code. This Henry had too strong of a security usually - he didn't know when he'd get another chance like this. There...! The crack in the data link. Not a huge security hole, but if he could just -

"If you wanted a look, you could've just asked." A hand reached over Kyuhyun's shoulder and gently encircled his wrist pulling it away, the movement disconnecting the contact between his fingers and the data manipulation he was working at. Kyuhyun jerked his hand free, his neck snapping around only to see Henry behind him, a lopsided smile on his face.

"But you're - " _over there_ , he began, the protest dying in his throat as he realised that the Henry sitting opposite of him had taken on the distinct, blank-eyed demeanor of a disconnected NPC. An NPC that soon flickered out of existence, the Henry behind him taking his former seat, looking far more tired than he had been moments earlier.

Tired, and older, Kyuhyun thought. Or maybe that was just a consequence of the 'tired'. "I saw him," Henry was saying. The cup in front of him was empty, reminding Kyuhyun of his own still untouched coffee. "A couple times. Saw you too every now and then."

It took Kyuhyun a few moments to realise that Henry was answering his earlier question. "Stalker," he grumbled - but Henry wasn't done.

"I saw you here," he continued, a jerk of his thumb indicating the cafe around them.

"Yeah?"

A frown - and Kyuhyun's heart inexplicably dropped with worry - that just as quickly disappeared. "I told you I'm not here to turn you in," Henry said with a shake of his head. "But," and he paused with another frown before continuing, "there's a reason why you're not supposed to code memories like this."

"What do you know," Kyuhyun grumbled, Henry's words biting far more than he would've liked them to.

Henry shrugged, and stood suddenly. "I have to go," he said, looking towards the door. 

"Yeah yeah, don't let me keep you," Kyuhyun replied - and didn't wait for Henry to leave before warping his location to the access point in the apartment.

"Memories," he muttured under his breath, as he accessed the shortcuts in the terminal with a quiet 'sorry, Zhou Mi', running the code that would link the other man's consciousness into the VR and relocate his avatar onto the bed so he wouldn't freak out too much when he woke up. "Memories," he repeated with a snort, before slipping the visor onto his own head, letting his consciousness fall into the VR as well.

He blinked once, twice, as he found himself in the white room, taking the customary second or two to readjust to the avatar within the VR. "Memories, huh," he said for a third time, before dismissing the matter from his mind with a shrug, sliding open the panel and ducking through.

It was the cafe.

"Brings back memories, doesn't it, Kuixian?" And there was Zhou Mi, at the table that Kyuhyun had been sitting at only minutes earlier.

Well damn. Funny how things worked out. "Sure. Too bad I seem to have forgotten them." 

Zhou Mi made a face. "You only forget it because you spilled coffee and made a fool of yourself with that waitress - why are you staring at me like that?"

"No, it's nothing." Kyuhyun shook his head. "Really? It's a good thing you're here to jog my memory then - "

"But I can't remember the rest," Zhou Mi interrupted, frowning. "It's strange. Like there's a hole in my memory and _why are you looking at me like that, Cho Kyuhyun_? Do I have something on my face?"

Focus Kyuhyun, focus. Look, everything's normal and if Zhou Mi didn't know you he would probably think you were a creep so _stop staring_ \- he's still looking at you, Kyuhyun, you better stop staring and say something - "Your nose," Kyuhyun said, "it's big." _Shut up yes I know that was lame,_ he snarled at the voice in his head that was about to say just that.

The frown didn't leave Zhou Mi's face, though. "Something's wrong," he said, and Kyuhyun cursed him for having his occasional astute moments.

"Let's go somewhere else," Kyuhyun suggested - warned, really, because in the next moment, they were both standing on a well worn forest path regardless of whether Zhou Mi wanted it or not.

Considering the stormy expression on Zhou Mi's expression, that had been a 'did not want'. "You have a lot to explain," he said.

Kyuhyun ignored him, and started walking instead, hands in pockets. A sigh, and reluctant footsteps indicated that Zhou Mi was following. It was late spring or early summer - the air pleasantly warm but not yet unbearably hot under the shade of the leafy canopy. The absence of any sort of motion except for them was reassuring - his security nets were still secure.

The relative silence tugged at Kyuhyun's thoughts like the teasing of wool into yarn. Zhou Mi had _remembered_. But why? _How_. A sudden thought like a lump in the yarn stopped him short (Zhou Mi's muffled complaint as he walked into Kyuhyun's back) but no, it couldn't have been - except the coincidence of this timing with Henry was too much of just a coincidence... or was it?

A hand on his shoulder, and then he was spun around and staring into Zhou Mi's face with his too big nose and upset looking eyes. "You're avoiding something, Kuixian," Zhou Mi said.

Kyuhyun stepped back, pushing Zhou Mi's hand away. He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. Why was it so complicated, he wondered with a groan. _You were the one who made it this complicated, Kyuhyun,_ that voice that sounded suspiciously like his pointed out. "I didn't have a choice," he muttured - aloud, it seemed.

The upset diminished and the frown was back. "What did you do this time? The university didn't like it very much the first time you hacked into their network in the middle of exams." 

"How - " Kyuhyun began to say, but a rustling of leaves interrupted his thoughts. "Hide," he muttured, shoving Zhou Mi behind a tree, extending the intsys to its full length so he could use both hands to type. The rustling continued for another moment, before dying down completely - leaving Kyuhyun with only a hint of the access address.

A groan came from behind him. "You _are_ doing something you're not supposed to be doing again, aren't you?" Zhou Mi asked as he stepped back into the clearing. "That's why you've been acting strangely since logging in, isn't it?"

"Yeah..." Kyuhyun replied, distracted, parsing the signal pattern. The intrusion style looked familiar, like something he'd seen recently -- "Henry...?" he mused aloud.

"You know Henry?" Zhou Mi sounded surprised, looking over Kyuhyun's shoulder at the screen of the intsys.

" _You_ know Henry?" Kyuhyun parroted back.

Zhou Mi shrugged, taking a step back. "Maybe? Um, let's see... he transferred in during middle school from overseas, but I lost contact with him after he graduated from high school. It might be someone else though - it's just that I bumped into him yesterday and will you stop staring at me like that? You've been doing a lot of that today and it scares me a little."

"Yeah, yeah... I was just surprised," Kyuhyun said dismissively.

"Were you friends?" he asked curiously. "I never heard you talk about him."

Zhou Mi grinned. "Oh, that's because he was two years my senior, so by the time I met you when you spilled coffee over my notes, I'd almost forgotten about him."

"Will you stop bringing that up," Kyuhyun groaned, although his heart was doing excited leapfrogs that Zhou Mi _remembered_. A flood of relief at Zhou Mi's words. "Probably a different Henry, since there's no way he's two years older than you."

"Funny you bring that up," Zhou Mi said, suddenly thoughtful. "It was like he hadn't aged at all since I last saw him..."

Just a coincidence, Kyuhyun reminded himself firmly - but the thing was, he didn't believe in coincidences like this. Besides, hadn't Henry only mentioned that he'd 'seen' Zhou Mi around? Although talking to him did involve seeing him, Kyuhyun supposed. "Huh." A noncommittal grunt when he realised that Zhou Mi was expecting a response. "Maybe it's the same person, then." Although why Henry was trying to get in was beyond him.

Another rustle of leaves - and Kyuhyun couldn't help himself from glancing around him even though he had a feeling stopping Henry wasn't worth the effort. He'd focused so much on the security of the first layer, he hadn't bothered doing anything extra on this one. If Henry had gotten through the first one, Kyuhyun doubted he'd be able to stop him from cracking the last layer of security either.

"So, uh, why did you suddenly say Henry's name?" Zhou Mi said - or Kyuhyun _thought_ he said, the last two words being eclipsed by an explosion.

"The hell!?" A yell of surprise, as he promptly shoved Zhou Mi into the undergrowth. That sure as hell wasn't Henry, because this style of penetration could only mean one thing. That, and the fact that there was a fucking huge fireball bursting into a firey cage around them and fuck fuck _fuck_ what the _hell_!?

How the _fuck_ had government gotten in?

"Do not move" - and oh god they even had the booming voice down, they really had their dramatics planned out - "or we may be forced to take drastic measures."

Kyuhyun straightened, eyeing his surroundings. If it had been anyone else, their intimidation tactics might have worked. _Might._ "Yeah? Like what?"

Damn it, how the hell had this happened? Kyuhyun cursed silently, his mind already working on altering the coding. He swore under his breath. The cage wasn't all for show - data manipulation was getting harder by the moment.

"This will be much less painful for you if you do not struggle," the voice was saying.

"That's what she said," he quipped. Zhou Mi stirred behind him - Kyuhyun did his best to telepathically tell him _not to move_ because this was difficult enough as it was. He worried at his lip as he did another quick visual check.

He could see the shadow of a figure now. Barely. And... they didn't look pleased. Huh. Really. Which meant he should keep on talking, right? Right. "I heard you guys were a bunch of sadistic jerks though." What the hell was he even saying and _stay down Zhou Mi_ I'm almost done...! "I didn't think you'd let up a chance-- _fuck_!"

A bolt of pain shot through the base of his neck, travelling down his spine. He heard a definite whimper from Zhou Mi this time - and the shadow went from being a shadow to an actual person. Generic government avatar, how'd he guess.

"You're right, we don't let go of chances like this," the guy was saying, a glint of interest appearing as he noticed Zhou Mi in the background and this definitely felt like something out of a B-rated film if it didn't hurt so much to _think_ let alone perform data manipulation without the use of an intsys.

Although, there wasn't that much more they could do even if he did use it, was there? Shooting a cocky grin at the government guy, Kyuhyun slid out the intsys, and accessed the shortcuts programmed that would finish the job and get Zhou Mi out through both layers of the VR.

With a crackle, he felt Zhou Mi's presence disappear behind him - and not a moment too soon as a second fireball landed where Zhou Mi had been seconds earlier, the explosion throwing him off his feet. "Are you _trying_ to kill me?" he muttured, scrambling upright.

"Killing you would defeat the point" - and by this point, the whole almighty booming voice thing was getting a bit annoying - "but we did warn you."

_Warn me about what_ , Kyuhyun had been about to say, when the most excruciating pain exploded what felt like inside his brain. His fingers dug into his skull as he dimly registered falling to his knees. So this was what they meant by data capture. He'd always been curious. In a "I want to know but I'd rather it never happen" sort of curious. Ah... as long as he'd gotten Zhou Mi out, he could handle whatever they threw at him... Probably.

A slight release of pressure, and Kyuhyun pulled himself back up, leaning against a tree. "That... wasn't too bad," which would have sounded a lot more bad-ass if he hadn't been breathing so heavily. He was ready for the next wave - he'd programmed a shortcut for temporary local security just in case of scenarios like this - but not for the next, or the next.

"Are you fucking kidding me," he murmured. Already, his surroundings were dimming, as he fought to keep his consciousness in his own plane. The dirt under his fingernails was surprisingly cool. Strange how he was noticing the oddest things. He pushed himself off the ground, only to be overcome by a wave of nausea from the pressure in his skull, dropping weakly back to the ground. Yeah, they weren't kidding.

He stumbled to his feet, fumbling for his intsys, even though he was feeling the futility of it already. _How_ still echoed in his mind, even if it probably didn't matter by this point - an obvious answer jiggling at his consciousness - or what was left of it, at any rate.

And, speak of the devil - "Henry," he breathed, his voice horribly jagged. Somewhere in the distance, but close enough to still be seen - and Kyuhyun took a deep breath as he saw the kid pull something out of his pocket and point it at him.

He didn't hear the bang. He didn't feel it when it hit. All he felt was the sticky warmth flowing over his fingers a few moments later, and the black curtain that fell through his mind.

A voice - no, two voices:

_I warned you, didn't I?_

  
**_You can't hold on forever,_ Kuixian**   
_Kyuhyun_   


"I... don't have a choice."

 

 

Kyuhyun stirred from the darkness what felt like an eternity later.

Zhou Mi was sitting there, when he blearily opened his eyes.

"Why?" Kyuhyun thought he heard him say, before it all faded out again.

_"Ah, well, it's my fault," Zhou Mi was saying when Kyuhyun faded back in, but this wasn't what Zhou Mi should sound like - words sparse and breaths laboured._

_Kyuhyun shook his head, and gripped Zhou Mi's hand. "Don't say that," he snapped. "It's not your fault unless_ I _say so - "_

Zhou Mi slipped him a note across the table when the professor had his back turned. "Lunch, usual place?" the slip asked.

Kyuhyun rolled his eyes, jotted down 'old fashioned', and slid it back.

The 'usual place' was a cafe tucked into a back alley that Kyuhyun had discovered in his 2nd year of high school. It was also where, one unfortunate spring day, he'd happened to knock a cup of coffee across a perfect stranger's notes. "Don't worry about it," the stranger had said, and then -

_"Fancy seeing you here," says the stranger whose name is Zhou Mi. Bells that signal the change of hour rang across the campus, startling the birds from the trees that lined the main path._

_"You go to my school?"_

_"Yes?" And this - wide eyed and laughing - is how Zhou Mi_ should _be._

_And one day, as they're sitting on the benches on either side of the cobblestone path, Kyuhyun wonders if he should point out: "You do realise that my name isn't actually Kuixian, don't you?"_

_Zhou Mi frowns, thinks, before he says: "What are you talking about? Isn't it - " and then he stops as his mouth forms a perfect "oh!" and Kyuhyun almost wants to laugh but Zhou Mi gets there first and says "I like 'Kuixian', so I'll keep calling you that."_

(And this is where Kyuhyun realises that this cannot be real, cannot be happening, because this is where Zhou Mi is supposed to glitch because of the bug in the memory function and brings the entire VR down - )

_"But I_ had _to," Kyuhyun protests weakly._

_There is a faint wail of sirens somewhere nearby, panicked screams still lingering in the streets between the accident and the hospital. Henry tilts his head at Kyuhyun. "Really?" he asks, all of five years old._

_If Kyuhyun finds this strange, he doesn't say anything. No, but what he does say is -_

_"You shot me," a certain sense of horror mixed in with wonderment tracing through his words._

_Mini-Henry just smiles - and there is a bang._

There is a bang.

He jerks awake; he must have dozed off. Lines of code stare at him unchangingly and unforgivingly incomplete. He sees how much he still has to do - groans, and face faults.

Zhou Mi yelps - there is another bang as the door swings open too far yet again - and returns a few seconds later with someone else fretting all the time about how it's been _days_ since Kyuhyun's come out of his room and Kyuhyun whines right back as the someone drags Kyuhyun out by the back of his shirt - which is when they trip over a stray pair of pants and go down in a tangle of long limbs and Zhou Mi's eyes widen as -

_Zhou Mi's eyes widen - his hands tighten around the steering wheel and he swerves and Kyuhyun can only watch as he_

"So, what did you want to talk about?" Zhou Mi asks - and he is whole and perfect (except for the part where his nose is still too big.)

What did he want to talk about? Kyuhyun stared and held back the words he wanted to say, the stories that threatened to spill out - until they did spill out, tumbled through his mouth until he was talking like a teenage girl about the assignments Zhou Mi missed, about the flowers by the building (but he doesn't mention that they weren't for him), about the time when the waitress at the curry store down the street flirted with him and above all he talks about how _you're not gone, you can't be gone you're here and_

"I'm sorry."

"If you're sorry, then why don't you do something about it?"

Kyuhyun groans and face faults - and finds the deja vue horribly jarring. "Why are you in my head I never said you could be in my head," he complains, but Henry doesn't move from where he is.

"I like it here," he says with a cheeky grin, before his expression sombers. "We all make mistakes - "

"Zhou Mi is _not_ a mistake!"

"But what matters is that you fix them," Henry continues, as if he hadn't been interrupted. He floats a little, and pulls something out from overhead. "Did you have a chance to look at what I gave you?" Kyuhyun's hand goes to his pocket - except it's obviously empty. "Never mind, look at it later. Here, catch."

Kyuhyun obliges, snatching the ball tossed his way out of the air. "Did you just give me something from my own mind?" he asks.

"Maybe," Henry laughs.

"Henry?" a third voice suddenly appears - and Kyuhyun sits up and takes notice because:

"Ah, Zhou Mi! Just in time, haha."

And Kyuhyun can say that this might be the weirdest dream he has ever had, because it might be Zhou Mi's voice but that is a _puppy_ he is looking at. "I never thought that figments of my imagination could be this strange."

"I'm not a figment of your imagination," puppy-Zhou Mi protests, leaping into Kyuhyun's arms. "I'm real, really."

More laughter, predictably from Henry's direction. Or, Henry, who has since turned into a sparrow fluttering around the space. "I'll leave you two to it - Oh, and Kyuhyun? When you cut me off earlier? I was going to say that you 'happen to be the _second_ person who's successfully created an integrated data AI'."

"Somehow, he seems a little strange," puppy-Zhou Mi says, his tail wagging a hundred miles an hour. "Who cares if you're the first or second, as long as you succeeded, right?"

"I didn't succeed," Kyuhyun replies so quietly that even puppy-Zhou Mi's sensitive ears cannot quite pick them up. "Besides - "

_There is a bang, and the car swerves. The mother scoops up the child who had run into the street but there is a scream nonetheless - and it takes a moment for the focus of horrified onlookers to shift to the car. No, not to the car, but to the screams. To the brightly painted walls and to the shattered sunflower on the door. To the small broken bodies tossed aside like rag dolls._

_Not to the car._

_Only he brings his focus to the car - because it has never left the car because the colour is familiar, the scratch on the right door is familiar, the shape is familiar even crumpled as it is and more importantly the man hunched over the wheel is more than just_ familiar _-_

_\- the timing is horrible. A train derailed? Why now, Kyuhyun wanted to yell. I don't care, just, don't just walk away - !_

_"We're busy, he might not make it anyway," a passing man in a white coat says and Kyuhyun is struck by the unfamiliar urge to hit him - but what sticks is_ he might not make it anyway _and he hurries back and -_

_"Just a bit longer," he pleads to no one in particular, as he hides the two of them in an empty corridor. His mind made up, accepting that 'he might not make it anyway', Kyuhyun finds his thoughts surprisingly clear. He slips his portable VISOR over the bandages on Zhou Mi's head - and is almost surprised when it works. He pulls out his enterm, fingers tapping restlessly against the keys as it boots up, hooking it so the VISOR had direct access. "Don't you dare disappear on me," he growls under his breath, and wonders how much time he has before Zhou Mi's laboured breathing stops altogether. A bud of panic begins to bloom in some chest cavity before he forcibly nips it away._

_His fingers fly over the keys, mind racing, everything coming together perfectly. Strange - he'd written most of this as a side project one day while he'd been bored in class as a 'what if' and 'just for the hell of it' - he'd never thought it would actually come in handy. Never thought it_ could _come in handy, third law of the 'net and all that. Not to mention, no one had done it before. A personality matrix, the memory array, encoding the states. A groan from Zhou Mi - "Don't you dare," Kyuhyun repeats._

_It's almost done, he's sure it's almost done - "he's" almost done._

_Zhou Mi stirs. His eyes open. Kyuhyun stops, stares. His fingers, however, do not stop their franctic activity, his mind continuing to parse line after line of coding._

_"What are you doing?" he asks - and Kyuhyun pauses for a split second._

_"Just shut up," he replies instinctively - and realises that's probably the wrong thing to say._

_A terse silence follows, and Kyuhyun can feel Zhou Mi's eyes on him. His fingers falter for a moment, as he meets Zhou Mi's gaze._

_Zhou Mi smiles. "It's alright," he says, and then -_

You can't hold on forever, Kuixian ah...

"Oi, he's finally awake! Cho Kyuhyun you asshole, do you realise how _worried_ we were!?"

He was in his room. His actual room. The only one he couldn't just sign out off. He groaned - but when he tried to sit up, he found that his limbs didn't seem to be wired up to his nerves correctly.

"Do you even realise how long you've been out?" Kyuhyun answered with another groan. "A week! It's been a week!"

A week...

"...!" Kyuhyun jerked upright - hitting his head against the wall when still nothing worked and he slumped back down. "Zhou Mi... I have to - "

There were people in his room. There shouldn't have been people in his room. There were people in his room who were suddenly avoiding Kyuhyun's eyes and looking awkwardly at each other.

"Kyuhyun," one of them began awkwardly - Han Geng, Kyuhyun recalled after a moment. "Zhou Mi's not... here."

Kyuhyun shook his head. "That's not - I need to go back." He pushed the blankets off and slid off the bed, wondering when he'd ended up in it in the first place. "He's waiting."

Han Geng cleared his throat uncomfortably. "It's been almost ten years, Kyuhyun - "

"That's not it," Kyuhyun interrupted. They didn't know. He wasn't gone. Zhou Mi was still... here.

Someone grabbed his shoulders and turned him around. The blurriness of memories were slowly returning, faces finally matching up with names now. "Zhou Mi was our friend as well, but you have to let go. I'm sure he's moved on, so..."

Kyuhyun shook his head, pushed them away. "I don't want to hear it - "

"You can't hold on forever, Kyuhyun."

 

The edge of the table cut uncomfortably into his arm, the VISOR feed biting into his cheek. Zhou Mi was waiting for him when he finally pushed himself upright, letting his mind transfer into consciousness. Zhou Mi, standing there with the same disapproving look on his face that Kyuhyun remembered from another time, another place.

"You brought me into the virtual network without my permission again, Kuixian!" Zhou Mi protested, but this time, Kyuhyun cut him off.

"Let's go for a walk," he suggested - and he could see the confusion struggling in Zhou Mi's features. "A virtual walk," he amended. "It's more interesting."

Zhou Mi stared at him like he had grown an extra head, before he finally nodded.

They entered the network through the forest that had bordered the school campus. A faint look of fear flitted across Zhou Mi's face, and Kyuhyun couldn't help but suppress a shudder as well - the incident hadn't been long enough gone for him to have forgotten. Zhou Mi shot him a worried look and an unspoken question. Kyuhyun shrugged. "I think we're safe. I found a gift." His hand went to his pocket, fingering the slip of paper that was there.

They didn't stay there long, the unease far outweighing the usual calm the place brought. It had been one of the few good things of having chosen a university out in the middle of nowhere. They visited the city next - its windows strung with holiday lights, the storefronts crammed with sale items. A sign proclaiming a special on tech parts caught Kyuhyun's eye, but Zhou Mi tugged him along, pointing excitedly at a bright red sign of "LIMITED TIME OFFER" and something about shirts and vests and Kyuhyun's mind blanked. He rolled his eyes, but followed anyway. A zoo - the hippopotamus yawns at them and the giraffes ignore them altogether, enjoying its midday snack. The beach is empty, and Kyuhyun takes the opportunity to push Zhou Mi into the lake, prompting an all out water fight. They retire inside as the sun sets, a fire crackling in the fireplace.

"That was fun," Zhou Mi laughed, fingers wrapped about a mug of tea. He looked at Kyuhyun thoughtfully for a moment before asking: "Could we go to one more place?"

"Yeah, sure," Kyuhyun replied. "Where?"

Salty spray splashed against his face, the waves crashing against the cliffs below loud in his ears. He shot Zhou Mi a curious look, wondering why he wanted to come here of all places.

"No reason," Zhou Mi said simply. "I thought it would be nice."

"Nice?"

Zhou Mi hummed in response. "Mm. As a memory."

The word hit Kyuhyun in the gut like the grille of a truck, and he had to struggle to maintain his composure. Zhou Mi, however, wasn't done.

"You disappeared," he was saying. "Henry visited, by the way. He said you probably wouldn't be around for a while."

"He did?" There wasn't much more for him to say.

Zhou Mi nodded, and the sounds of falling water retook the conversation once more.

Kyuhyun's fingers brushed against the paper again, as he swallowed his heart back down until it rested somewhere behind his stomach, even as its pulse rose. "Let's go back," he suggested - except as usual, it was less of a suggestion and more of a warning. Zhou Mi was not waiting there when he pushed himself upright, mind transferring into consciousness. He wasn't surprised. He found Zhou Mi in the bedroom, sitting cross-legged on the bed.

"I..." Kyuhyun started to say, but the words stuck in his throat.

"This is good-bye, isn't it?" Zhou Mi didn't seem worried at all, a smile on his face.

Kyuhyun nodded - and terminated the link.

 

 

_"So you're going to do it?" Henry idly tosses the ball in one hand, not paying Kyuhyun much mind._

_"Seven-two, one-oh-one, seven-eight, one-one-four, eight-nine," Kyuhyun recites. "72. This isn't a physical address, is it?"_

_Henry laughs, and tucks the ball into his pocket. "You got me," he admits. "Although it took you longer than I thought. But you're right - I don't exist."_

_Kyuhyun eyes the dust around him, and nods. "I couldn't hold on forever," he says, answering Henry's question._

_"We all make mistakes," Henry laughs. "It's only human, after all."_

**Author's Note:**

> 72.101.78.114.89 is the decimal conversion of 01001000.01100101.01001110.01110010.01011001 which is the binary version of HeNrY.


End file.
